To shrink wrap or not to shrink wrap...

[Sixchan]

You are missing my point. How many main stream book stores shrink wrap their products? B&N, Borders, used book stores, etc? Have you ever seen a books store that shrink wraps EVERY single product? I know I haven't. And I visit every book store I can. So why is a gaming store any different? Are gamers some sort of book destroying group of fiends? It just seems completely counter to good consumer relations.

And yes. Asking at the counter to look at every single gaming book I might wish to review is asking too much. I can look at a dozen or more books every time I enter a gaming store. And that's a store I visit weekly or bi-monthly. Put me in a gaming store that carries items I don't get to see often and I might look at 30 or more books. That is asking too much. Far too much. So much that I will not buy any products from that store. I will also encourage others to not purchase items from that store.

If a store treats me well I will bend over backwards to support that store. But if a store treats me badly, such as preventing me from seeing their products, I'm going to decry their behavior to hill and dale. Word of mouth (or via the internet) is a powerful tool.

Annoying your consumer base is bad business.

Actually, I've been in quite a few bookstores that shrinkwrap copies of 'Specialist Books' to preserve their condition. Although granted most of them had an unshrinkwrapped version on top, and wrapped ones underneath. How about that? would that be okay?

I would point out that while you compare gaming shops to book shops, I'm more inclined to compare them to other gaming shops, such as video game shops, where games (and their stategy books) usually are shrinkwrapped. So I guess its how you look at it.